Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1316 i The Week

What happened A grim milestone The UK became the first country in Europe – and only the fifth in the world, after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico – to pass the milestone of 100,000 recorded coronavirus deaths. “It’s hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic,” said the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. He was, he added, “deeply sorry for every life that has been lost” but insisted: “We did everything we could.” Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that Britain had now reached the peak of the second Covid wave, but warned that the tally of daily deaths would remain high for some weeks yet. On Wednesday, the Government announced a limited hotel quarantine system for people flying into the country from Covid hotspots.…

Clare Smyth and Hélène Darroze, who became the first two female chefs in Britain to be awarded the maximum three Michelin stars. Smyth runs Core in London W11; Darroze presides over The Connaught in Mayfair. Monique Roffey, who won the £30,000 Costa book award for her sixth novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch. Judges praised the book, set on a fictional Caribbean island, for its “beautiful language and compelling story”. Kenneth Branagh, with reports that he will be starring as Boris Johnson in a new Sky drama set during the pandemic. This Sceptred Isle is scheduled for release in 2022.…

49% of UK adults cannot explain terms like antigen or epidemiologist. 47% say the same about antibody, and 43% about contact tracing. While 88% say they have heard of the R number, only 42% say they can explain it. Savanta ComRes/Guardian Willingness to accept a Covid vaccine is steadily rising in Europe. 81% of Britons and 66% of Swedes say they would have the vaccine, compared with 61% and 45% respectively in November. Italy has seen a 19-point increase to 71%, while in France, 46% now say they would have the jab, up from 32%. YouGov/Guardian In a worldwide poll, 69% of 14- to 18-year-olds and 58% of over-60s agree that there is a climate emergency. UNDP/BBC…

Washington DC New broom: President Joe Biden is poised to reverse a law which prevents US federal funds from being given to foreign nongovernmental agencies that perform abortions, offer abortion-related services, or advocate for abortion reform. Known as the “global gag rule”, it was introduced by the Reagan administration, but expanded by Donald Trump. The US will now also join the international vaccine-sharing scheme Covax. The changes, which mark a major shift in US global health policy, were announced last week by Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured), whom Biden has made his chief medical adviser, in a speech to the World Health Organisation. In his speech, Fauci also paid tribute to the WHO’s work in fighting the pandemic, and said he was “honoured” to announce that the US was cancelling its…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the astronaut Tim Peake 1 Don’t Stop Me Now by Freddie Mercury, performed by Queen 2 It Must Be Love by Labi Siffre, performed by Madness 3 Waterloo Sunset by Ray Davies, performed by The Kinks 4 Mr Blue Sky by Jeff Lynne, performed by the Electric Light Orchestra 5 Word Up! by Larry Blackmon and Tomi Jenkins, performed by Gun 6* I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Diane Warren, performed by Aerosmith 7 Glycerine by Gavin Rossdale, performed by Bush 8 Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle, performed by Monty Python Book: an atlas Luxury: a telescope * Choice if allowed only one record…

“How strange,” tweeted Elon Musk when news broke on 7 January that he had overtaken Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person, worth some $185bn. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, 49-year-old Musk was an introverted, bookish child who was bullied at school (once so badly that he was hospitalised for a fortnight), before emigrating to Canada and the US to study physics and economics. In his 20s, he founded two digital businesses, Zip2 and X.com, which became PayPal: he was ousted as chief executive of the latter, but made $165m. In 2002, he founded SpaceX, the space transport outfit which he hopes will enable people to live on other planets, and now divides his time between SpaceX, Tesla and projects like Hyperloop, a proposed ultra-high-speed train line. Musk…

Eat nuts to cut dementia risk Regularly eating a handful of nuts from middle age onwards could help stave off dementia in later life, researchers have found. In a long-term study involving 16,737 people, men and women who started to eat more than two portions of nuts a week in their 40s were 21% less likely to show signs of reduced cognitive function in their 60s, 70s and 80s than people who ate nuts less than once a month. “Higher intake of nuts in midlife was related to a lower risk of cognitive impairment in late life,” said the team, from the National University of Singapore, in the journal Age and Ageing. It’s not the first study to find a link between nut eating and dementia; and a number of…

Statues: the culture wars erupt again “In the middle of a dark January, nine months into a pandemic”, what is the “great, burning issue at the forefront of everyone’s mind”, asked David Olusoga in The Observer. According to Robert Jenrick, the answer is the fate of the nation’s statues. Last week, the Housing Minister outlined plans to protect public memorials from what he called “baying mobs” and “woke worthies”. Jenrick said he would change the law to protect historic monuments from attacks, such as the one by Black Lives Matter demonstrators on the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol last summer. In future, he added, local people will be consulted on the fate of “heritage assets”, and any decision to remove them will require planning permission. Left-wingers…

Cricket: England triumph in Galle England’s brief, entertaining tour of Sri Lanka culminated in Galle on Monday with an “extraordinary day of Test cricket”, said Nick Hoult in The Daily Telegraph. The day in question – the fourth of the Second Test – began with England’s final pair at the crease, and with the visitors still 42 short of Sri Lanka’s first innings total of 381. On a turning pitch, Sri Lanka looked to be “in the ascendancy” – and with every chance of levelling the series. But having swiftly brought England’s first innings to a close, Sri Lanka then “imploded with the bat” – just as they’d done on day one of the opening Test. They were skittled out for a mere 126, with England’s two spinners, Dom Bess…

If you’re finding it difficult to talk about the climate impact of dairy at the dinner table, you’re not alone. For many dads,* milk and yoghurt and other cow-processed products are seemingly protected by a nostalgic force field that fends off all manner of fact and logic and article links pointing to their planet-taxing effects. Even your multi-media keynote presentation showing how swapping milk for oat drink can save the planet 73% in greenhouse gas emissions** doesn’t stand a chance against a, “That’s nice, sweetheart”, from dad as he fades into the basement with a cream cheese sandwich. As frustrating as this can be for a son or daughter, it’s important to remember that dad probably has a lot on his mind, like worrying about the mortgage or fixing that…

Last summer’s biggest blockbuster, Tenet, had a time-twisting story premise that made for hypnotic action scenes combining backwards and forwards motion. Here are some other fine films in which Chronos moves in mysterious ways: Back to the Future Two of the biggest hits of the 1980s were time travel films – The Terminator, among the decade’s darkest blockbusters, and this witty jaunt, as charming now as on first release. Michael J. Fox stars as a small-town teen who is zapped back to the 1950s. Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow Perhaps the most charming of time-twisters is Groundhog Day, the 1993 romcom in which Bill Murray repeatedly relives a single day. This rollicking 2014 action flick borrows that premise, but in this case, it is Tom Cruise stuck in a…

Paula Rego is one of our greatest living painters, said Jan Dalley in the FT. Still working at the age of 86, she is “a classic in her own lifetime”, an artist whose “quasi-mythologised yet psychologically acute illuminations of the human condition” opened the doors for other female artists, and gave renewed vigour to figurative art at a time when it has lost much of its prestige, compared to abstraction and conceptualism. Rego’s “fierce portrayals of life – often women’s lives” – frequently draw on her roots in her native Portugal. Since moving to Britain to study art in the early 1950s, her work has shifted from abstract to representational, with her best-known paintings evidencing an eerie, surrealist-informed character that has been often imitated but never bettered. This summer, Tate…

Cointreau was a surprise hit of last year’s lockdown, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. In spring, sales of the orange liqueur – the most popular brand of triple sec – rose so rapidly that “many shops temporarily ran out of stock”. It seems that a “lockdown cocktail-making boom” was fuelling demand for this “back-bar staple”. To judge from the simultaneous spike in sales of tequila, most people then were using Cointreau to make margaritas. In the depths of winter, that drink no longer seems quite appropriate, and so what Cointreau-based cocktails should you be making now? One good option is the sidecar – one of my favourite winter cocktails – which is made using cognac, triple sec and lemon juice (typically in a 2:1:1 ratio). But perhaps for…

Cineworld: bruised but unbowed When Cineworld finally presented its bosses’ controversial “long-term incentive scheme” to shareholders this week, the company was given a “bloody nose”, said Dominic Walsh in The Times. But the protest wasn’t large enough to derail the £200m-plus plan – worth a possible £65m each to the stricken cinema chain’s CEO, Mooky Greidinger, and his brother and deputy, Israel. “Almost a third” of Cineworld’s shareholders voted against the scheme, which required 50% approval. The “outcome in favour” was helped by the voting rights conferred by the brothers’ 20% stake – sparking suggestions of a “conflict of interest”. In November, Cineworld was forced to seek financial lifelines from lenders worth $750m. But the chain, whose 127 UK cinemas are currently closed, is also reliant on government support,…

Controversy of the week “Teething problems” “The bill for Mr Johnson’s Brexit is coming in,” said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer, and it is “a punishingly steep one”. Some of those who are wailing about the new order deserve little sympathy: Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, for instance, who were “lusty sponsors of the great experiment with the UK’s prosperity” – or the Leave-supporting singer of The Who, Roger Daltrey, who joined a chorus of rock stars furious that the new visa rules make touring in Europe so much harder. But the bill is being paid by many others too: by the fishing fleets in Scotland and the West Country, which are tied up because they are unable to export their catch; by the farmers whose meat is rotting at…

Glastonbury, which was cancelled for the second year in a row. The Eavis family, who run the festival, said that 2020 ticket holders would have the option of rolling their deposits over for a second time – and promised something “really special” for 2022. Bond fans, after the release of 007’s 25th big screen outing, No Time To Die, was postponed for the third time. The delay, until 8 October, will come as yet another blow to cinema-owners, who had been hoping to reopen with a sure-fire blockbuster. Edinburgh, with the planned closure of its landmark department store, Jenners, and the loss of 200 jobs. Founded in 1838, Jenners is owned by Mike Ashley’s Frasers group; but its grand building, on Princes Street, belongs to the Danish billionaire Anders Holch…

Edinburgh Independence plan: The SNP has revealed its “road map” to a new vote on Scottish independence. If the party wins a majority in May’s election, it says it will request a Section 30 order from the UK Government – allowing it to pass laws normally reserved for Westminster – in order to hold a second referendum. The 11-point plan insists that “there could be no moral or democratic justification for denying that request”, and warns that it will “vigorously oppose” any attempt by the UK Government to challenge the legality of that vote in the courts. According to a “four-nation” poll for The Sunday Times, a majority of voters in both Scotland and Northern Ireland want independence referendums. However, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the “focus” should be…

Tunis Ten years on: Violent protests erupted in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, and at least ten other cities last week, sparked by a viral video of police mistreating a shepherd. They coincided with the tenth anniversary of the ousting of President Ben Ali, the first leader of the Arab world to be toppled in the “Arab Spring” uprisings of 2011. The protests are directed at the failure of successive governments to tackle poverty and deliver on the promises of 2011. Tunisia’s already weak economy has been wrecked by the pandemic. Harare Covid deaths: Zimbabwe’s foreign minister, Sibusiso Busi Moyo, has died of Covid-19 – the third high-ranking politician in the country to do so in recent weeks. Moyo became well known internationally in 2017 as the face of the military-backed coup…

“In one way, it doesn’t matter whether Joe Biden will be any good. We should just enjoy the relief. Imagine if a bear moved into your house and for four years, every day, it did huge dumps on your bed, in the fridge, in each individual sock. It mauled the neighbours, it roared all night, it chewed through a wall, then insisted you had to pay for the wall, it locked your kids in cages, and when the bear catcher came to take it away, it summonsed its untrained cubs to blow up his van. You’d just be delirious that it was gone. This wouldn’t be the time for anyone to ask, ‘So, what do you think your next pet will be like?’” Mark Steel in The Independent…

Don’t let the builders pass the buck Madeline Grant The Sunday Telegraph One of the key lessons of the Grenfell Tower disaster, says Madeline Grant, is how amazingly “expensive it is to build cheaply”. It’s a lesson many leaseholders in flats across the UK have discovered to their cost. A friend of mine, for example, who has saved for years to buy his London home, has been told that its insulation, which passed all safety checks at the time, is in fact flammable – and that he is personally liable for the costs of fixing it. It’s the same story for thousands of others now stuck in a nightmarish situation, unable to sell or remortgage their flats, facing soaring insurance premiums and the prospect of having to stump up tens…

The monkeys who roam the Uluwatu Temple in Bali are notorious for robbing unsuspecting tourists, then holding onto their possessions until food is offered as a ransom, says The Guardian. Now scientists have discovered that the long-tailed macaques have worked out which objects are most highly valued by the visitors, and so most likely to be exchanged for food. Not only do they target these items – mobile phones, wallets, sunglasses and so on; they also demand a better reward to return them. A team from the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, spent 273 days filming the monkeys and tourists interacting. They found that whereas the monkeys would usually hand over low-value items, such as hairpins, quite quickly, in return for a relatively perfunctory treat, the negotiations when high-value…

Bridgerton, the Netflix period drama filmed at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, features an abundance of sex – and producers went to great lengths to make sure actors were at ease. They hired intimacy coordinators, and a closed set was “absolutely sacrosanct”, said director Julie Anne Robinson. That is, closed but for the castle’s “room monitors”, who refused to leave their posts – leading to some awkward moments. “We would be shooting a sex scene,” said Robinson, “and they would say, ‘Can you go easy on the bed, go easy on the bedpost?’” Joe Biden had top billing at last week’s presidential inauguration, but it was a photo of Bernie Sanders looking grumpy in homemade mittens that stole the show. The senator’s pose led to a slew of online memes in…

Early on the final day of the Abu Dhabi Championship, Rory McIlroy looked on the cusp of a much-needed tournament victory, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. The Northern Irishman, who last won a title 14 months ago, had hit birdies on the second and third holes, and was two shots ahead of second-placed Englishman Tyrrell Hatton. But then came a remarkable turnaround. While McIlroy’s tee shots veered consistently to the right, Hatton “reeled off five birdies between the 7th and the 16th”. He ended up five shots ahead of his playing partner to claim his fourth title in 14 months. Hatton’s victory means that this relatively unappreciated golfer leapfrogs McIlroy in the rankings, and enters the world’s top five for the first time, said James Corrigan in The Daily…

A dose of philosophy To The Guardian The argument about vaccination strategy between the doctors of the British Medical Association and the scientists on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation may have more to do with ethics than the underlying science (“Doctors call for shorter gap between Pfizer Covid vaccine doses in UK”; “UK vaccine adviser says delay of Covid second dose will save lives”). The BMA has a Kantian (rule-based) moral philosophy typified by the Hippocratic oath. Doctors have an obligation to do the best they can for each patient, and any action or inaction that causes potential harm to a patient is deemed to break this obligation. On the other hand, scientists on the JCVI take a utilitarian view of moral philosophy, seeking the greatest good for…

Returning Nazi loot... Eight years ago, tax investigators discovered a 1,500-strong “hoard of art looted by the Nazis” in the Munich flat of 80-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt, said David Crossland in The Times. It has taken nearly a decade of research, but one of the works recovered from the apartment – a drawing entitled Playing the Piano by 19th century German artist Carl Spitzweg – has finally been reunited with its rightful owners. In 1939, Nazi authorities confiscated the work from Henri Hinrichsen, a Jewish music publisher from Leipzig whose business had recently been seized under Hitler’s “Aryanisation” laws; he and much of his family would later perish in the Holocaust. The drawing was acquired by Hildebrand Gurlitt, an art dealer appointed by the Nazis to market confiscated art. When the…

When a booking is cancelled, Ruth and David discover a vitriolic online review of Brookfield and wonder who could have written it. Lee finds Kirsty on the streets searching for Philip’s workers; he warns her that it’s dangerous but she bristles. Later, a concerned Helen follows up, telling Kirsty to leave the search to the police, but Kirsty lashes out. Pip guesses that Rex posted the review and David confronts him. Rex comes clean and apologises, but Pip can’t let his betrayal go. Shula gets a call from Philip – he’s in prison on remand and says he’s desperate and has no one else to talk to; Gavin has turned himself in and given evidence against Philip. Pip lets off steam to Ruth about her frustrations with Phoebe and Rex.…

What the experts recommend The joys of brown food In the Instagram age, there’s a bias towards elaborate and colourful dishes that look appealing on social media, says Katy McGuinness in The Sunday Times. But a number of chefs are now rebelling against this trend, by pointing out that the key thing is flavour, and many of the foods we most enjoy – from pies and stews to simple vegetable soups – are more muted in tone. “A lot of the food I love is literally brown and beige,” says Anna Tobias, who opened Café Deco in Bloomsbury last autumn. “A plate of stew with mashed potato on the side is more delicious than one with a million ingredients.” Tobias isn’t alone in believing our priorities have become skewed: Nigella…

New cars: what the critics say The Daily Telegraph The Fiat 500, which relaunched in 2007, is still selling “like hot cakes” among “style-conscious urbanites”. Now that those buyers are turning to electric cars, so must Fiat. But can this EV replace the beloved petrol version, which will remain on sale? It is just as stylish, and though it’s still cramped, that never stopped buyers before. It also makes most of its rivals, like the Mini Electric, look overpriced. What Car? True, with its retro charm, there are not many cars that compete with the looks of the “über-chic” 500. The car feels well put together inside, but it’s irritating that you don’t get a touchscreen infotainment system, LED lights or other top tech with entry-level models. Few adults would…

UK government borrowing rose to its highest ever December level last month as the new wave of Covid restrictions kicked in: official figures put the monthly deficit at £34bn. Meanwhile, the prospect of a double-dip recession continued to loom. The latest figures suggested that the service sector, which accounts for 80% of the economy, has been particularly hard hit by renewed lockdowns; overall, the economy is contracting at its fastest pace since last May. Unemployment in the three months to November rose to 5%. Janet Yellen was confirmed as the first woman to head the US Treasury following a Senate vote. She urged President Biden to “act big” on the next Covid relief package. Bitcoin suffered its worst week in months on fears of tighter regulations in the US, falling…

● Ant music There’s hope again for the Chinese payments giant Ant Group, whose massive flotation was scuppered by Chinese regulators in the autumn, said BBC Business. Last week, founder Jack Ma made his “first appearance” since the crackdown on his empire, which includes the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba. Now, the governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), Gang Yi, “has signalled that the door remains open” for Ant’s market debut. ● Tencent’s tenacity Some saw the Chinese government’s action against Ma “as a vengeful Communist Party lashing out at the outspoken businessman”. But Beijing has been “grappling with new technologies and their possible implications for the stability of the Chinese financial system”. Indeed, action was almost inevitable after Ant captured such a large chunk of the Chinese payments and…

Trade-offs down on the farm Sarah O’Connor Financial Times Last spring, fearful that the pandemic would cause a shortage of migrant workers to harvest the UK’s fruit and veg, ministers launched a “Pick for Britain” campaign to attract local workers, says Sarah O’Connor. “It was a perfect test of whether the economy could wean itself off low-paid migrants.” The campaign attracted plenty of applicants, but few stuck with it: by the end of the season, just a tiny percentage remained in the job – proof, said critics, of the country’s work-shy nature. This narrative ignores the reality. “Britons aren’t lazy – they’re rational. They will do tough or antisocial jobs if the pay compensates sufficiently, like working on an oil rig. But picking jobs don’t pay a premium compared with…

Academics at the University of York removed an image of the three wise monkeys – representing the Buddhist maxim “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” – from a poster for an art history conference, after deciding it was offensive, reports The Times. They explained the “iconology promulgates a long-standing visual legacy of oppression and exploits racist stereotypes. We bring this to your attention, so that we may be held accountable for our actions and, in our privileges, do and be better.” One of England’s oldest boys public schools, Winchester College, has revealed that it is considering admitting girls. The 600-year-old school is one of only four all-boys boarding secondary schools left in Britain.…

The head of AstraZeneca has confirmed that Britain’s orders of its coronavirus vaccine will not be diverted to Europe, to make up for a shortfall there. Owing to lower than expected yields at its plant in Belgium, the firm had warned the EU that it would not be able to fulfil its entire order of the vaccine, which its regulators were due to approve within days. In response, Brussels said that doses produced in the UK should be sent to the EU, and warned that it could restrict the export of vaccines made within the EU (such as the Pfizer jab). On Tuesday, however, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said that as Britain had placed its order three months earlier than the EU, it would be first in line for deliveries…

Amsterdam “Asian El Chapo” arrested: The alleged head of Asia’s biggest crime syndicate was arrested by Dutch police last Friday, as he prepared to board a flight from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. One of the world’s most wanted men, Tse Chi Lop is believed to be the ultimate leader of the Sam Gor drugs syndicate – commonly known as The Company. Specialising in methamphetamine, as well as ketamine and fentanyl, it dominates the $70bn Asian drugs market. According to the UN, its sales of methamphetamine alone were worth up to $18bn in 2018, while Australian federal police say the syndicate is responsible for 70% of all the illegal drugs that enter Australia. They had reportedly been tracking Tse – a Chinese-born Canadian national dubbed the Asian El Chapo – for…

Life during the Aids crisis Russell T. Davies became famous by writing about the lives of gay men; but in his teens, he was anxious about his sexuality – and it may have saved his life. He was living in Swansea, and as a “horny” 17 year old, he was excited to learn that there was a gay sauna in nearby Newport. “I used to think, ‘I could go and have lots of sex in that sauna right now,’” he recalls. Eventually, in 1980, he plucked up the courage to seek the place out – but then walked on past, “scared of men and sex and becoming what I am”. Now, he realises that going in would have opened the door to that world of casual sex, just at the…

One of Italy’s top young chefs has provoked outrage in his home country by serving lasagne “toothpaste” at his Rome restaurant. Valerio Braschi, 23, winner of MasterChef Italia and head chef of 1978, is serving up tubes of warm purée of minced meat and tomato sauce, which diners squeeze onto a toothbrush made from egg pasta, and eat with a sauce of liquefied parmesan. “It might be a bit extreme for the purists,” he admitted. US rock band The Flaming Lips have staged two Covidproof gigs in which 100 audience members partied inside giant individual inflatable bubbles. Each capsule contained a speaker, a water bottle, a fan, a towel – and a “I gotta go pee / hot in here” sign, which could be used to attract staff. The focus…

A group of prominent scientists have come to the defence of rapid lateral flow tests, describing them as an essential tool in the pandemic. The scientists – including Prof Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, and Dr Susan Hopkins, of Public Health England – were reacting to an earlier study which concluded that mass lateral flow testing risked being dangerously counterproductive, as the tests miss more than half of all positive cases. This criticism, argue Bell, Hopkins et al., was based on a misunderstanding. Compared with PCR swab tests, lateral flow tests do appear to miss many positive cases. But PCR tests detect “non-viable RNA fragments” (in people who are no longer infectious) as well as viable ones, whereas lateral flow tests pick up…

“We look at the world once, in childhood / The rest is memory.” Poet Louise Glück, quoted in The Washington Post “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” Hannah Arendt, quoted on The Browser “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” Jonathan Swift, quoted in The Sunday Times “Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves and good fortune to others.” Ambrose Bierce, quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly “We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” Mary Catherine Bateson, quoted in the FT “If I’m such a legend, why am I so lonely?” Judy Garland, quoted in The Independent “There is no security on this Earth. Only opportunity.” General Douglas MacArthur, quoted in Forbes “As often as not, we are homesick…

Tennis Andy Murray pulled out of the Australian Open, after failing to organise a “workable quarantine” that would have allowed him to be ready to compete in the tournament. The Scot had missed his scheduled flight to Melbourne after testing positive for Covid-19. American football Kansas City Chiefs secured a place in the Super Bowl with a 38-24 win over Buffalo Bills and will face Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Women’s football Manchester City beat Brighton & Hove Albion 7-1 in the Women’s Super League.…

To The Daily Telegraph If the nation’s mental health is deteriorating as a consequence of the pandemic and lockdowns, then much of the blames lies with how the BBC presents these matters. Clive Myrie’s recent reports on the six o’clock news are a case in point. Do we really benefit from listening to intensive care unit staff having to break bad news to relatives, or watching gravediggers at work? Most adults will have had some experience of grief – we do not need the BBC to hammer home the message that this pandemic is causing many deaths. The BBC should consider the impact of its reporting, though I suspect increasing numbers of viewers are simply reaching for the off switch. Jane Moth, Snettisham, Norfolk To The Daily Telegraph I profoundly…

Patricia Kopatchinskaja: Plaisirs illuminés Alpha Classics £15 This latest album featuring the “bare-footed violin maverick” Patricia Kopatchinskaja is named after a “perplexing” Dalí painting featuring rectangular boxes, eggs, a bleeding knife and 34 bearded cyclists, said Geoff Brown in The Times. Thankfully, what is on it – 20th and 21st century music with a folk twist – is “much easier to grasp”. There’s Sándor Veress’s Musica concertante; the 1966 Concerto for Strings by Alberto Ginastera; and Les Plaisirs illuminés itself, a Dalí-derived double concerto by Francisco Coll. It’s a “rewarding” programme, and “just the kind of fare to get maximum voltage” from Kopatchinskaja and the Camerata Bern chamber orchestra. The disc is a showcase for Kopatchinskaja’s “dazzling virtuosity”, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian – and the “remarkable” Camerata Bern.…

Russell T. Davies’s new drama series, It’s a Sin, is something of a companion piece, 20 years on, to his groundbreaking “masterpiece” Queer as Folk, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. But while that story of 1990s gay life was a “gorgeous fantasy” that made no mention of the scourge of Aids, It’s a Sin focuses on the outbreak of the epidemic in the 1980s. It has the same “gusto”, “irreverence” and “joy” as Queer as Folk – which this time only heightens the tragedy. The focus is again on the lives of three young gay men, in this case Ritchie (Olly Alexander), Roscoe (Omari Douglas) and Colin (Callum Scott Howells), all newcomers to London in 1981. The three meet in “a whirl of excitement”, said Camilla Long in The…

Getting Things Done by Edwin C. Bliss, 1976 (Scribner, out of print). I stumbled upon this as a boy and it opened my mind to the then-radical idea that you could use time badly, or wisely. Bliss’s book is written for a world of filing cabinets and secretaries, so today I’d recommend instead David Allen’s book with the same title. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1968 (Puffin £7.99). I’m always willing to be whisked away to a fantasy world, and Le Guin’s is among the wisest, most original, and most beautifully portrayed. It is hard to think of a grand theme that isn’t explored somewhere in the Earthsea trilogy, but always with subtlety and humanity. Dragon Warriors by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, 1985 (Corgi, out…

On Sunday 7 February, the Northern Chords Festival Orchestra will perform classics including William Walton’s music for Laurence Olivier’s 1944 Henry V, as part of the Chamber Music Sundays at Kings Place. Tickets £22.50, 6.30pm (kingsplace.co.uk). Steven Isserlis and Mishka Rushdie Momen play works by Janácek and Shostakovich as part of Wigmore Hall’s Spring Series; Tuesday 2 February, 7.30pm, available for 30 days (donations welcomed; wigmore-hall.org. uk). The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has re-released ten concerts, including Tasmin Little performing The Lark Ascending. Until 28 Feb, £10 each (liverpoolphil.com).…

Crema de frijol (blended bean soup) Serves 8 200g dried beans, soaked overnight in water 1 onion, quartered 3 garlic cloves, peeled 1 sprig epazote (optional) 2 tomatoes, cored and halved a pinch of ground cumin 3 cloves a pinch of salt to garnish: dried oregano 1 avocado, cut into small cubes soured cream crumbled queso fresco chopped coriander 3 corn tortillas, cut into small strips and fried gently in oil until crispy 1 large ancho chilli, cut into strips and fried gently in oil until crispy • Drain the beans, rinse them and place them in a pan. Add the onion, garlic, epazote, tomatoes, cumin, cloves and salt. Add water to cover the ingredients by 4cm. • Bring the pan to a boil on a high heat. Cook for…

Film director best known for his work on the Up series Michael Apted 1941-2021 Michael Apted, who has died aged 79, was a prolific British film director, with a slew of acclaimed and commercially successful films to his name, from Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988) to the 1999 Bond film The World Is Not Enough. But his most enduring legacy will be the Granada TV documentary he first worked on as a young researcher, in 1964. Inspired by the Jesuit saying “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”, Seven Up! featured 14 children aged seven from a range of backgrounds, who were interviewed about their lives, their hopes and their expectations. There was…

“Europe invested billions to help develop the world’s first Covid-19 vaccines… And now, the companies must deliver,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week. You can understand her agitation, said Nikos Chrysoloras and Katharina Rosskopf on Bloomberg. The EU’s “underwhelming” vaccination response (the bloc trails both the US and UK) threatens to “prolong recession-inducing lockdowns” – and politicians, “eager to dodge the blame”, are running for cover. An escalating supply spat with AstraZeneca has only served to highlight the “fiasco”. The row began last Friday when the British-Swedish pharma warned that production pressures meant it would “fall far short” of a contractual obligation to supply Brussels with a first tranche of 100 million shots, said Politico. Top officials “all but accused” AstraZeneca of “cutting supplies” intended for…

After a dramatic rebound from the Covid crash last March, US benchmark indices have reached “record highs in the early days of 2021”, said Katie Martin in the FT. “Popular stocks like Tesla continue to defy efforts at sober valuation” – no wonder some fund managers are “on the alert for a pullback”. Seth Klarman of Baupost Group has warned of investors who mistakenly believe that risk in markets “has simply vanished”. He likens them to “frogs being slowly brought to the boil”. There are certainly concerns. Analysts at Absolute Strategy Research recently produced a “checklist of bubble indicators” that put the current rally in US “growth” stocks in the same context as the boom and bust of Japanese equities in the 1980s, or the 1990s dotcom debacle. “Clients are…

Leon Black The co-founder of Wall Street buyout firm Apollo Global Management is “one of the most successful financiers of his generation”, said the FT. But Leon Black now faces a public “reckoning” over his ties with the convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his cell in 2019. Following an independent inquiry commissioned by his firm, Black has announced his retirement as CEO after 30 years. He’ll be replaced later this year by fellow co-founder Marc Rowan. The review cleared Black of any involvement with Epstein’s criminal activities – pointing to a “professional relationship” to explain why he paid $158m to Epstein over a five-year period to 2017, said the FT. It was an apparently successful one. Indeed, Black, who was worth $7.7bn in 2019, “attributes…